I was not expecting much sweet stuff from Cake. I haven't seen Jennifer Aniston do much, so I have no real opinion of her, and this film looked mostly like an award-grasping vehicle. But after her Golden Globe nomination, I thought I'd give it a go. And holy crap, I was wrong.
To be sure, the film works almost entirely because of Aniston's performance. She is Claire, an apparently kind, clever, and successful woman who has survived a car accident. Her son, however, did not survive, and Claire is left severely scarred and in chronic pain. Aniston poignantly and not-so-gently embodies the pain and bitterness of her character, both in her amazing physical work and in her desperate struggle to reconcile her past with her future. In fact, I would consider her journey to be not unlike that of the bereaved parents in David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole. But I won't describe much of the movie here, because it's quite long and involved. Just take my word that it's an engaging, intelligent, and occasionally funny "story", if you're one of those people who obsess over plot.
Cake features a most unlikely cast, and yet the actors work in remarkable unity. Adriana Barraza skillfully mirrors Aniston's every move, though her character Silvana, Claire's hired help, is almost Claire's opposite: kind, motherly, affectionate, and fiercely loyal, even when she is obliged to help her boss smuggle drugs. The rest of the cast only appears in passing, but each performs with such strength in their few scenes that they balance the film's focus on Aniston. Felicity Huffman hilariously plays the support group's leader, William H. Macy pops in as the other party in the Accident, and Anna Kendrick plays the funny/creepy ghost of another woman in Claire's support group who committed suicide. The real treasures in this incredible ensemble are Chris Messina and Sam Worthington, who gently provide a male presence in the film and a romantic motivation for Claire.
The rest of the film isn't particularly novel in content, but it has several important stylistic and thematic characteristics. Director Daniel Barnz (Won't Back Down, 2012), of whom I expect even more great things in years to come, trains his focus on Aniston in moments of quiet isolation, giving Aniston the time to perfect her performance. These moments are contrasted sharply with her carefully guarded social presence: We see her acerbic aggression in the first scene, wherein she harnesses intense gallows humor to mock the group. In this way, Barnz works seamlessly with writer Patrick Tobin to craft a film with remarkably little "comfort" or sentimentality; instead, we get a clear, brutal picture of a life (of privilege, to be sure) plagued by pain and loneliness. One of the most shocking -- and, I think, timely -- moments happens as Claire is attempting therapy. After Claire yells, curses, and gives up, her trainer asks her if she even truly wants to get better. That moment felt like a great centerpiece to the film, wherein Claire recognizes that her identity has become this wounded, scarred shell of a woman, dictated by pain and painkillers and devoid of joy, love, or even hope.
Perhaps the greatest evidence of the filmmaker's intelligence is not allowing Aniston an "Oscar scene" of great weeping, shouts, and revelation. In fact, Barnz carefully allows Aniston the freedom to create a holistic performance, by which I mean that in watching the film I felt more like I was watching a stage play. Whether by some magic of the editors, the director, or the actor herself, we get a clear, unobstructed view of Claire through her tumultuous journey and achieve a certain release with her at the end.
IMDb: Cake
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